


Tale of a Hero

by Lassarina



Category: Final Fantasy IX
Genre: Gen, Post-Game(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-31
Updated: 2016-08-31
Packaged: 2018-08-12 07:13:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7925485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lassarina/pseuds/Lassarina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After her coronation, Garnet returns to Pinnacle Rocks, seeking answers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tale of a Hero

**Author's Note:**

> For genprompt_bingo, prompt "river/stream/brook"

If Garnet had thought her life constricted when she was the heir to Alexandria, it was as nothing compared to her life as Queen. It was not that she lacked the power to choose; rather, she was more aware than ever of the consequences of her choices. Beatrix had overseen the rebuilding with her customary competence while Garnet and the others had entered the half-world of Memoria within the branches of the Iifa Tree, but once Garnet had returned to Alexandria to take up her crown for good, the responsibilities lay heavy on her shoulders.

“You wished to see me, Your Majesty?” Beatrix stood in the doorway of Garnet’s private sitting room, her arm raised in the salute of Alexandria.

“Yes,” Garnet said. “Please, come in, sit down.”

Beatrix entered the room and chose a carved wooden chair that her armor would not damage. Garnet stood next to the wing-back chair that she usually preferred, wringing her hands together instead of seating herself.

“How may I serve you, Your Majesty?” Beatrix’s voice was quiet and even. Garnet wished she had half the general’s poise.

“I want to go to Lindblum, not as a visit of state, but as myself. I want you to accompany me.” The words came out in a rush, tumbling past the nervous lump in her throat to spill on the carpet between them, heavy with expectations—of what, she could not have said.

Beatrix considered the request, and her response, carefully. “For what duration, Your Majesty?”

How long did it take to find the pieces of a broken heart? She didn’t know, so she settled for something that should not unduly alarm her general. “Only a day or two. I wish to visit Pinnacle Rocks.”

Beatrix’s one visible eyebrow rose. “I see,” she said. Garnet had never told her general about meeting Ramuh there after the attempt to extract her eidolons, but she was not surprised that Beatrix seemed to know. Beatrix knew a great deal that Garnet did not tell her. “When do you wish to leave?”

“As soon as possible.” Garnet turned away from Beatrix’s too-perceptive gaze, looking at the dagger that she kept on her desk. “I know it is inconvenient.”

“You are the Queen,” Beatrix said, her tone neutral.

Garnet looked back over her shoulder. “That does not give me license to do as I will.”

Beatrix smiled faintly. “I shall make the arrangements. How do you wish to explain your absence?”

Garnet had thought of this. “There are no major events scheduled in the next two weeks, except for the meetings to discuss the reconstruction. I will arrange for any I might miss to be cancelled, indicating that I wish to pursue other work.” One of her earliest decrees as Queen had been that the usual round of castle social events was suspended until the reconstruction was complete. She still accepted invitations to the entertainments that the nobility hosted, but she would not spend the treasury’s money on parties when people needed houses.

Beatrix saluted. “As you wish, Your Majesty.” She waited for Garnet’s nod of dismissal, then left the room.

Garnet walked to her desk and touched the handle of the dagger, as though she could invoke Zidane by that simple contact. If such a thing had been possible, she would have accomplished it long ago.

“I miss you,” she said aloud, but no one answered.

~*~

Pinnacle Rocks was much as Garnet remembered it. She swung off the chocobo, wincing a little as the movement pulled at muscles no longer quite so accustomed to long journeys. She made a silent resolution to venture outside castle walls more often, a decision that might well make Steiner apoplectic, but she could not rule well sequestered away behind the walls. That was how her mother had grown so disconnected from the people she ruled. Garnet was determined to keep only the best of Queen Brahne’s rule, and leave the worst behind.

With Beatrix as her shadow, Garnet climbed the tree roots and made her way down to the crystal-clear stream that pooled at the bottom. She paused to strip off her boots, and then stepped into the water. It lapped cold around her ankles, sending shivers up her spine. Without Zidane and Vivi’s banter, the pool had a cathedral stillness that lay heavy around her.

She slipped a hand into her pocket and pulled out the unpolished chunk of peridot. The stone caught the light reflecting off the water and glimmered yellow-green, and in the refraction of that light, an image formed. Behind her, she heard Save the Queen ring free of its sheath, and the old man held up his hand.

“Peace, Queen’s Protector,” he said. “I mean your liege no harm.”

“My apologies, Eidolon,” Beatrix said formally, bowing. Her sword scraped back into her sheath. “I meant no insult.”

“Your instincts are good,” Ramuh said. “You need not apologize for them.” He turned to Garnet. “It has been a long time since we spoke, summoner. You have grown stronger.”

“Thank you,” Garnet said. Now that he was here, she was unsure what she had meant to ask him. “You were of enormous help. I am grateful for your assistance.”

“Gratitude is unnecessary. You earned my service fairly, and used it well.” His bushy eyebrows quivered and drew low over his eyes. “Something troubles you.”

She nodded, but found that she could not speak, any more than she could have after her mother’s death.

“Shall I tell you another story?” His voice was kind when he asked, and something in it seemed to free her tongue.

“The story you told us before,” she said slowly. “You gave us two endings.”

“Yes,” he said, and seated himself mid-air, steepling his fingers. “You and your friends conferred, and told me that the manner of a hero’s death speaks for itself, so it matters not that they did not stop to tell Joseph’s daughter of his passing.”

“I think I was wrong,” Garnet whispered.

Ramuh tilted his head. “Why do you think that, summoner?”

“A hero would have done the right thing,” Garnet said. “A hero would have told her, and not left her to wonder, or to hear the story from some passing bard. A hero would not have—” She had to stop, had to swallow back the tears. A queen did not weep in public. A queen did not show weakness. A queen was in control of herself at all times.

“So if I were to tell you the same story now,” Ramuh mused, “you would tell me that heroes are also human? What changed your mind?”

Garnet had spent years under Doctor Tot’s tutelage; she knew a leading question when she heard it. Still, it was an effective tactic. “I, too, wait for word,” she said. Behind her, she heard the whisper of metal as Beatrix made some movement.

Ramuh nodded. “Your friend with the tail,” he said.

“He didn’t leave Memoria with us,” Garnet said. “I don’t know where he is, but it’s been months.”

“And no one has thought to bring you word.” Ramuh nodded, his beard rippling with the movement. “But why does this change how you would see my story end?”

“When you first told me that story, all I knew of the world was, well, stories. I only knew of heroes in books and plays. On the stage, it is so simple.” Garnet thought of Lord Marcus and Lady Cornelia, lovers doomed to die rather than be together, and tears clogged her throat again.

Ramuh smiled. “We tell stories because it is how we understand the world around us,” he said. “Life is so often messy and complicated, with too many threads woven at the same time. Stories simplify it, break it down into smaller pieces so that we can grasp them and combine them to find our answers.”

“Which answer is right?” Garnet asked him.

“Ah.” Ramuh looked down at the water, where the point of his beard trailed as he sat floating on air above it. “What makes you think there is a right answer?”

She opened her mouth, and then closed it again. He was right. It was much more complicated than that. She would not find her answers here.

Ramuh nodded. “So then, summoner. What will you do now, with your story? What will you do with your eidolons?”

“I am now Queen,” she said, “but I will always be myself.”

“Just so.” The old man smiled, and then shimmered and was gone.

Garnet bowed her head for a moment, then turned back to Beatrix, who had been waiting patiently. “Let’s go back,” she said. “There is much work to be done.”

“Did you find what you came for, Your Majesty?” Beatrix asked as they climbed the tree roots.

“Not really,” Garnet said, “but I believe that is an answer of itself.”

Beatrix only smiled, and led the way back to their chocobos.


End file.
